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Thread: [EcoDharma] U.N. Climate Change Report

  1. #1

    [EcoDharma] U.N. Climate Change Report

    Dear All,

    This is not "politics," but a crisis arising from human excess desire and selfishness. The only solution is to treat this world as our temple, our home, and maintain it. A unique report was released this week, very much unprecedented in scope and scientific backing, and all should be aware ...

    U.N. climate change report sounds 'code red for humanity'

    Aug 9 (Reuters) - Global warming is dangerously close to spiralling out of control, a U.N. climate panel said in a landmark report Monday, warning the world is already certain to face further climate disruptions for decades, if not centuries, to come.

    Humans are "unequivocally" to blame, the report from the scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said. Rapid action to cut greenhouse gas emissions could limit some impacts, but others are now locked in.

    The deadly heat waves, gargantuan hurricanes and other weather extremes that are already happening will only become more severe.

    ... Drawing on more than 14,000 scientific studies, the IPCC report gives the most comprehensive and detailed picture yet of how climate change is altering the natural world - and what could still be ahead.

    Unless immediate, rapid and large-scale action is taken to reduce emissions, the report says, the average global temperature is likely to reach or cross the 1.5-degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warming threshold within 20 years.

    The pledges to cut emissions made so far are nowhere near enough to start reducing level of greenhouse gases - mostly carbon dioxide (CO2) from burning fossil fuels - accumulated in the atmosphere.

    ...The report says emissions "unequivocally caused by human activities" have already pushed the average global temperature up 1.1C from its pre-industrial average - and would have raised it 0.5C further without the tempering effect of pollution in the atmosphere.

    That means that, even as societies move away from fossil fuels, temperatures will be pushed up again by the loss of the airborne pollutants that come with them and currently reflect away some of the sun's heat.

    A rise of 1.5C is generally seen as the most that humanity could cope with without suffering widespread economic and social upheaval.

    The 1.1C warming already recorded has been enough to unleash disastrous weather. This year, heat waves killed hundreds in the Pacific Northwest and smashed records around the world. Wildfires fuelled by heat and drought are sweeping away entire towns in the U.S. West, releasing record carbon dioxide emissions from Siberian forests, and driving Greeks to flee their homes by ferry.

    Further warming could mean that in some places, people could die just from going outside.

    "The more we push the climate system ... the greater the odds we cross thresholds that we can only poorly project," said IPCC co-author Bob Kopp, a climate scientist at Rutgers University.

    Some changes are already "locked in". Greenland’s sheet of land-ice is "virtually certain" to continue melting, and raising the sea level, which will continue to rise for centuries to come as the oceans warm and expand.

    “We are now committed to some aspects of climate change, some of which are irreversible for hundreds to thousands of years,” said IPCC co-author Tamsin Edwards, a climate scientist at King’s College London. “But the more we limit warming, the more we can avoid or slow down those changes.”

    But even to slow climate change, the report says, the world is running out of time.

    If emissions are slashed in the next decade, average temperatures could still be up 1.5C by 2040 and possibly 1.6C by 2060 before stabilising.

    And if, instead the world continues on its the current trajectory, the rise could be 2.0C by 2060 and 2.7C by the century’s end.

    The Earth has not been that warm since the Pliocene Epoch roughly 3 million years ago - when humanity's first ancestors were appearing, and the oceans were 25 metres (82 feet) higher than they are today.

    It could get even worse, if warming triggers feedback loops that release even more climate-warming carbon emissions -- such as the melting of Arctic permafrost or the dieback of global forests.

    Under these high-emissions scenarios, Earth could broil at temperatures 4.4C above the preindustrial average by the last two decades of this century.
    If you would like to read the report:

    https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/



    Gassho, J

    Sorry to run long
    STLah
    Last edited by Jundo; 10-11-2023 at 01:02 AM.
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  2. #2
    It hits me right in the gut. I have some faith in human ingenuity, but all things are subject to birth and death.

    Gassho
    Sat, lah



    Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
    求道芸化 Kyūdō Geika
    I am just a priest-in-training, please do not take anything I say as a teaching.

  3. #3
    I wept when I saw this report. I confess it has me feeling helpless and hopeless. This past year or so, watching how nations and individuals cannot come together to face the grave threat of a virus, I have little faith that we will respond appropriately to this.
    Gassho,
    Naiko
    st

  4. #4
    It saddens me how little appreciation we, as a society, have for the world, life, our home and ourselves. We ignore world hunger as if it weren’t our hunger, destroy the environment as if we didn’t depend on it, and do close to nothing to try and help, because we’d rather hide behind the coward notion that our individual impact would be too small and that it’s ONLY the responsibility of big companies and governments.


    SatToday
    Bion
    -------------------------
    When you put Buddha’s activity into practice, only then are you a buddha. When you act like a fool, then you’re a fool. - Sawaki Roshi

  5. #5
    Unfortunately, many people, (here in the US anyway) still don't believe any of this. Conned and lied to by self interested politicians, it has become, like COVID, a political side you have to pick. There is also an astounding ignorance of how science works, (it was cold in Boston last winter, so there is no global warming).

    Gassho
    ST-lah
    Shoki

  6. #6
    I too was extremely saddened reading the report. All things come and go, but this one rests squarely on the human race.

    That said, a Pure Land teacher said this yesterday, and it resonated with me:

    Dear Buddha,

    If our world must end in fire, teach me to dance in the flames. Teach me to help the suffering. Teach me to embody your grace.
    We have to keep the good fight going, but if we have to dance in the flames, so be it. Sorry for running long.

    Gassho,
    Koushi
    ST
    理道弘志 | Ridō Koushi

    Please take this novice priest-in-training's words with a grain of salt.

  7. #7
    As bad as I knew it was, it’s worse

    Doshin
    St

  8. #8
    It's quite the challenge to face this climate emergency without looking away or giving into despair. A balancing act, really; to accept the horror of it all and yet to also be able to take a step back and see the perfection in it, too. If only things were so easy that we could just do one or the other, but life is messy and the climate emergency is very messy already.

    Gassho
    Kyōsen
    Sat|LAH
    橋川
    kyō (bridge) | sen (river)

  9. #9
    Metta for the Earth and for all beings that call it home.


    Tairin
    Sat today and lah

  10. #10
    This is one of the reasons that, in my feeling of impotence toward such problems in the world, I have decided to go back and finish my book "Zen of the Future" (now perhaps to be called "Building a Future Buddha.")

    Unless we change human nature, and thus our runaway and wasteful economic system, I fear that our course will not change. The answer is in changes to the human being, in genetics, body and mind, to make us more easily satisfied and simple.

    Gassho, Jundo

    SatTodayLAH
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  11. #11
    Jundo - that sounds like you are promoting some sort of gene editing to create a master race of humans with a superior ethical framework.

    If that's the case, please watch Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

    Gassho

    Risho
    -stlah

  12. #12
    Heart wrenching but hopefully a wake up call. There's always the present moment.


    Silviu
    SatToday

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Risho View Post
    Jundo - that sounds like you are promoting some sort of gene editing to create a master race of humans with a superior ethical framework.

    If that's the case, please watch Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

    Gassho

    Risho
    -stlah
    Some stories can have a happy ending too.

    It is more "The Non-Wrath of Cohen."

    Gassho, J

    STLah
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  14. #14
    People will not change until it affects them personally in a significant way. By then, we already have a disaster. Our own human nature stands in our way.


    ST

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Troy View Post
    People will not change until it affects them personally in a significant way. By then, we already have a disaster. Our own human nature stands in our way.


    ST
    Hmmm. The same way people are not running for vaccines even when Covid impacts themselves and those around them?

    I fear that some more profound changes to greed and excess and human nature will be the only solution.

    Gassho, J

    STLah
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  16. #16

    U.N. Climate Change Report

    Quote Originally Posted by Jundo View Post
    Hmmm. The same way people are not running for vaccines even when Covid impacts themselves and those around them?

    I fear that some more profound changes to greed and excess and human nature will be the only solution.

    Gassho, J

    STLah
    There is a lot of misinformation out there. The unvaccinated are not bad people. I have a friend who is a nurse and she is choosing not to get vaccinated. While I don’t agree with her, she believes she is making the best decision for her family based on “science”. I also know other families who have lost loved ones to Covid. People who regretted their decision not to get vaccinated after being admitted to ICU. It is really sad and heart breaking. I hesitated getting my oldest vaccinated because there were stories of some kids having heart problems after getting the vaccine. Also the sample size of children they used to get approval was really small in my uninformed opinion. I wanted to wait 30-60 days to see how things went. I thought I was protecting her. Yep, she got Covid because of my hesitancy. My youngest is still unvaccinated because she is too young. Both of them and my fully vaccinated ex-wife got Covid. Everyone is okay now but it was scary for a few days. Maybe rolling out a vaccine would be easier if we were genetically altered? Less prone to making miscalculations, less stubborn, less selfish? Less likely to be caught up in a cult of personality? Less human?


    ST
    Last edited by Troy; 08-16-2021 at 05:04 PM.

  17. #17
    True, they're not bad people but they are making a bad choice. Sometimes it's useful to point that out, sometimes it isn't.

    I think an unseen element in vaccine hesitancy is an absence of humility.

    Gassho
    Kyōsen
    Sat|LAH
    橋川
    kyō (bridge) | sen (river)

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Kyōsen View Post
    True, they're not bad people but they are making a bad choice. Sometimes it's useful to point that out, sometimes it isn't.

    I think an unseen element in vaccine hesitancy is an absence of humility.

    Gassho
    Kyōsen
    Sat|LAH
    I agree 100% yes


    ST

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